Such flat-panel display (FPD) device generally comprises the display panel and a driver device. Liquid-crystal display (LCD) devices are most typical among FPD devices and are widely used as display devices for PCs and TV sets, for vehicle-mounted display devices such as car navigators and for mobile devices such as smart phones and other mobile phones as well as information terminals or digital assists. A display panel of the LCD device comprises an array substrate and a counter substrate, which are adhered to each other through a sealing material, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between these substrates. The organic EL display device is typically obtained by: arranging an organic EL film on the array substrate, and covering and sealing with a resin or the like.
The array substrate comprises in general, on its viewing area or pixel-array area, an array of scanning lines and an array of signal lines that intersect the scanning lines as well as a switching element and a pixel electrode at each intersection of the signal and scanning lines. The array substrate typically has, on its peripheral non-viewing area (so called “frame area”) at around the viewing area, connection terminals and optionally dummy pixels if needed. The dummy pixels are typically for preventing an occurrence of electrostatic destruction, especially due to a rubbing process, during manufacturing the array substrate.
Brought into a practical use in recent years are the FPD devices adopting a low-temperature polysilicon (LT-p-Si) film for forming the switching element of the array substrate. By such FPD device, higher definition is easily achieved, and a driver circuit or the like is able to be constructed on the array substrate. Moreover, a touch screen may be constructed in the interior of the display panel.
To cope with requirements of weight and size reduction of the FPD device, it is required to minimize the width of the peripheral non-display area and, in same time, to reliably prevent electrostatic destruction so as to keep high the manufacturing yield and reliability of the FPD device.
In view of the above, it is aimed in embodiments of the invention to improve a protection against electrostatic destruction while keeping small the width of an area for arranging dummy pixels, an array substrate and its manufacturing method for an FPD device, especially for that having the low-temperature polysilicon film.